TAMIL/JAPANESE

[GANESANS at cl.uh.edu]

March 14, 1997

After reading N. S. Raja's query, I did some search.

Karl H. Menges 1) Dravidian and Altaic,
Anthropos, v. 72, 1977, p.129-179

2) Dravidian and Altaic,
Cental Asiatic Jl., Wien, 19, 1975, p.202-265

V. Dybo, V. M. Illich-Svitych and the development of
Uralic and Dravidian linguistics,
Explorations in Language Macrofamilies, Bochum, 1989, p. 20-29

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   Tamil & Japanese
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The early poems of Japanese literature and Tamil Sangam poetry have several
similarities. Especially, the tamil akam poems describing "interior landscape"
(See A. K. Ramanujan's aesthetic translations) and Japanese
love poems. 

Sam Hamill 1) Only companion: Japanese poems of love
and longing, Shambala/ Random House. 1992 160 p.  and 
2)Kenneth Rexroth,  Love poems from the
Japanese. Shambala, 1994, 129 p.


When I read the above translations from Japanese and Tamil sangam poetry 
in original or AKR's translations, striking parallels emerge.

(early Japanese poetry 5-7th century called Manyoshu and tamil sangam 
age, 1st century b.c. to 3 century a.d.)

Also, see irAma. kurunAtan, cangkap pATalum jappAniyak kavitaiyum,
kalaignan patippakam, Madras, 1986, 112 p.


Nowadays, lot of tiny poems modelled on Japanese Haiku are being written
in Tamil. After all, Tamil is eminently suitable to write poetry
with "uLLuRai poruL" and "iRaicci". eg.,

ce. centil kumAr, nanaiyAta nilA (haikku), ceyyARu, 1990,
tamizanpan, cUriyap piRaikaL: jappAniya haikku vaTiva kavitaikaL,
narmatA, patippkam. 1985, 83 p.
etc.,

I hear that Shuzo Matsunaga has translated kuRaL into Japanese.
Do you have the bibliographic details? I want to buy a copy.
kuRaL metre in tamil has only 7 word units in it.

Susumu Ono and A. Shanmugadas (Jaffna), Worldview and rituals
among Japanese and Tamils. Tokyo, Japan, 1985, 220 p.

Susumu Ono 1) Nihongo Izen (Influence on Japanese from Tamil language)
Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987, 346 p.

2) Nihongo to Tamirugo, 1981 Tokyo (Japanese and Tamil)

3) Sound correspondences between Tamil and Japanese,
Tokyo, 1980.

4) The genealogy of the Japanese language: Tamil and Japanese.
Geno Kenkyu, Kyoto, v. 95, 1989, p.32-63

Mark Hudson, Tamil and Japanese: Ono's Yayoi theory.
Asian and Pacific Quarterly of Cultural and Social affairs,
vol.24, no. 1, 1992, p.48-64

K. V. Zvelebil, Tamil and Japanese - Are they related?
The hypothesis of Susumu Ono.
Bull. of School of Or. & African studies, 48, 1, 1985, p. 116-120

Shichiro Murayama, Nihongo: Tamirugo Kigensetsu hihan.
Tokyo, 1982
(Japanese and tamil: Comparative grammar)

Pon. Kothandaraman, A comparative study of Tamil and Japanese,
Int. Inst. of Tamil Studies, Madras, 1994

Bodhi Daruma, founder of Zen,  (Note the 'u' letter. This is unlike 
Bodhi Dharma of Sanskrit) He hailed from Kanchipuram
and is popular in Japan. Tamil also would make the name
Pothi Tharumar. (No consonant clusters.)

Japanese alphabets are arranged almost like Tamil (tamiz neTungkaNakku).

Lokesh Chandra, Tamil sound sequence of the Japanese alphabet,
Int. J. of Dravidian Linguistics, 1988, v.17 53-58.

Nowadays, Shu Hikosaka, Takanobu Takahashi and a host of others
have contributed to the growth of Tamil studies.

Can someone from Japan give me the details of Tirukkural translation
in Japanese. 
Thanks,
N. Ganesan

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